Pollsters: Obama’s N.H. win falls in line with trend

DOVER — A numerical advantage by Democrats in New Hampshire could be the simple explanation for a near-sweep by the party in Tuesday’s election, pollsters say.

The Election Day drubbing included a decisive win for President Barack Obama, who also carried the Granite State in the 2008 election.

Obama received 52 percent of the vote in New Hampshire this year, compared to Romney’s 46 percent, according to preliminary results compiled by WMUR.

Although New Hampshire has a rich tradition of Republican control, the state’s political make-up has been in flux since the 1990s, opening the door for historic opportunities for Democrats in both statewide and national politics.

Since helping to put Democrat Bill Clinton in office, New Hampshire voters have opted for Democratic governors in eight of nine elections, and also sent the first female congresswoman in the state’s history, a Democrat, to Washington for two terms.

This year, the thin margins between Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, coupled with a media-intensive presidential campaign, drove up turnout for both parties on Election Day.

And with Democrats now appearing to hold an edge in the state’s electorate, the outcome of the election was predictably in Obama’s favor, according to pollster Andy Smith.

“The biggest thing is there are just more Democrats than Republicans in New Hampshire,” said Smith, an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire and director of the school’s Survey Center. “We’ve been seeing for the last several years that Democrats have about a 5 percentage point advantage over Republicans in numbers in the state.”

Strafford County and portions of the Seacoast were strongholds of support for Obama during the 2008 presidential race, and voters there turned out to support the president once again this year. Obama won by commanding margins in Dover, Durham, Lee, Rochester, Somersworth and Newmarket, and received more than double the number of votes Romney garnered in Portsmouth, winning the city by 8,828 votes to 4,088.

In some communities, the margin separating the two candidates was narrower. Obama carried Barrington by about 300 votes, and won Northwood by nine votes.

Romney prevailed in some Lakes Region communities, such as Wakefield and Wolfeboro, where he owns a home. Romney won the town by a tally of 2,400 votes to Obama’s 1,854.

A majority of voters in Farmington, Milton, New Castle and Newington also picked Romney in the race, but by only slim majorities.

Smith said Democrats have seen their influence on the rise for the last 10 or 15 years, and that the two parties have been evenly matched in presidential contests for much of the last decade.

“It’s close, but in general elections, and particularly general elections in presidential years, Democrats have done quite well,” he said.

Dante Scala, another University of New Hampshire associate professor, had a similar take on the preliminary results from Tuesday’s election.

“President Obama did about as well as he did last time in New Hampshire,” Scala wrote in an email Wednesday, “He polled 2 percent better here than he did nationwide. So, at the presidential level, New Hampshire behaved the same way it did last time, as a swing state with a small but clear Democratic tilt.”

For Joe Cicirelli, chairman of the Strafford County Democratic Committee, ensuring the turnout tilted in favor of Democrats was a task that required months of organizing, and the labor of many volunteers.

“A lot of people were working long and hard hours,” he said. “We have some great activists in Strafford County who have been knocking on tens of thousands of doors, and making tens of thousands of phone calls.

State Republican Committee Chairman Wayne MacDonald said he was clearly disappointed about the result of Tuesday’s vote in New Hampshire. He praised Romney for the ideas he proposed during the campaign and for his record as a businessman.

“I think in the end we found out, or at least were reminded of the fact, that incumbency is a very powerful advantage in politics,” MacDonald said, “even when a president has not done a good job, and by all measurable statistics, Barack Obama has not done a good job.”